Overview
The following document outlines Telko’s policies regarding complaints. Telko is always eager to improve itself. In order for us to improve our services, we need to know the areas where improvement is needed. Constructive criticism is of course the best way of discovering these areas. For this reason Telko takes complaints very seriously. Without the feedback that our customer’s provide by making complaints, we could never improve, and would never grow and flourish as a company. This document outlines how you, the customer, can make a complaint in regard to a variety of areas and how we will amend the issue.

General Complaints Handling Procedure
The aim of our complaint handling policy is to attempt to resolve your complaint as soon as possible. Our Customer Care staff will endeavor to resolve your problem then and there. If they are unable to resolve it on the phone with you then and there, they will do everything within their power to resolve the issue within 72 hours. If the issue is complex enough that even this is still not possible we will endeavor to resolve the problem within 30 days from the date the issue was raised. In the highly unlikely event that more than 30 days is required to finalise your complaint, we will provide you with regular updates on all progress and the estimated time frame for finalisation. We will advise you of the outcome of our investigation of your complaint. If need be, we will provide this in writing.

Every time you contact our customer care department the team member will identify themselves to you by name. This way you can keep track of conversations that you have had with our representatives. This information will be very useful when compared to our staff’s notes. In the event that your complaint relates to a disputed amount on your bill, we will not ask you to make payment of this disputed charge until we have confirmed 100% that it is payable by you. We will however, require payment of any charges on your account not in dispute on their respective due dates. Upon the completion of your dispute investigation, we will contact you by phone to inform you of the outcome. We can of course also confirm this result in writing if you should so desire. If you are still not happy with the outcome you can request that we deliberate further on the matter. In the unlikely event that this still is not satisfactory, you should feel free to enforce your right to take your complaint to the next level as detailed below.

Customer Service Complaints
At Telko, our customer care team is the most important aspect of our company. They are the customer’s first port of call when dealing with our company. For this reason it is imperative that we are kept updated on any discrepancies within this department. If you are dissatisfied with the service our Customer Care team provides; you can make a complaint with the department’s manager on duty. If you do not find their response to be adequate, or your complaint relates to the department manager, you can make your complaint by post, fax or email. Our postal address, email address and contact numbers are located at the bottom of this document. In this case, simply include your name, account number, your preferred contact number and a description of the issue in your preferred form of communication. Upon receipt of this information your complaint will be addressed as soon as possible by a senior manager according to our standard handling procedure outlined above.

Misleading Sales
The idea that any of our staff might deceive you with false promises as a method of gaining you as a customer is a horrendous one. At Telko we believe in being as up front and honest with our customers as possible. Because of this we need to be informed if an individual in our sales department has let his team and by extension the whole company down. If it should come to your attention by whatever means that the offer made to you has not been followed through, please let us know immediately. The most efficient way of doing so would be to contact our Customer Care team. When making a complaint regarding a misleading sale it is important that we have the following information;

• Your phone number/account number
• The discrepancy
• How this discrepancy was brought to your attention

If possible the name of sales person who mislead you would also be very useful information.

When you call to make your complaint we will discuss with you the action that would best suit your needs. For example; if you were misled into believing that you would receive a $10 discount for joining in May, we can apply this credit despite it not being a genuine promotion. We will do our best to come to an agreement that suits you.

Do Not Call Register
Telko understands and respects that some people do not wish to be contacted by sales people. We always check our call lists with ACMA’s Do Not Call register. Despite doing these checks however, delays in ACMA finalizing your registration may cause your details to slip through our cross checking net. Should this occur in your case, Telko extends its sincerest apologies. Simply inform the sales person who contacted you that you recently registered for Do Not Call and they will update the calling list to ensure you aren’t contacted again. If you do not get a satisfactory response from the sales person upon informing them, you can make a complaint as you would for a misleading sale (detailed above).

Review of our Complaints Handling Policy
If you feel that our method of handling complaints is the problem, feel free to make a complaint regarding our procedure for handling complaints. In order for us to provide the best possible customer service we need all our policies to be of the highest industry standard. We review our complaints handling policy on an annual basis. During the year we take in all the feedback our customer’s give us regarding our complaints handling procedure, and do our best to adjust the policy to ensure that we are keeping up to date with our customer’s wishes. We need all the information we can get so as to fine tune this policy, so please, if you aren’t satisfied with how we approached an issue you brought to our attention, let us know so that we can do better the next time around.

Your Legal Rights

No part of this document limits your rights according to Telko’s terms and conditions, the Telecommunications Act, the Trade Practices Act, the Privacy Act or any other applicable laws. You are not limited to actions outlined in this document. Feel free to take any other independent action which enforces your right. We believe however, that our complaint handling policies should be more than enough to find an acceptable resolution for whatever problem you have.

Taking Your Complaint to the Next Level
We at Telko are proud of our method of resolving complaints and disputes. We pride ourselves on resolving issues quickly and fairly. If you are not satisfied with our methods however, you can take your complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). This can be done at any time, but is a last resort and should only be considered in extreme circumstances. The TIO will step in with authority to aid in resolution. The intention of this complaints handling policy is to ensure that no complaints/disputes become serious enough to warrant intervention by the TIO. If you believe that your complaint raises issues with telecommunications policy in general, or it is outside the jurisdiction of the TIO, you can lodge your complaint with the Australian Communications Authority (ACA).

Useful Contacts

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